Password Protect Zip Files in Mac OS X
Creating a password protected zip file is easy in Mac OS X and does not require any add-ons or downloads. Instead, use the zip utility that is bundled with all Macs.
If you’re familiar with the command line, the syntax of the encrypted zip command is as follows:
zip -e [archive] [file]
If you’re not sure how to use that, read on to learn how to create zip archives encrypted with passwords. These encrypted zip files will maintain password protection across platforms, meaning you can send a protected zip file to a Windows user and they will still need to enter the password in order to view the contents.
Set a Zip Password in Mac OS X
You can create password protected archives of files and folders:
- Launch the Terminal from the Applications > Utilities folder
- Type the following command:
- Enter and verify the password – don’t forget this
zip -e archivename.zip filetoprotect.txt
The resulting archive, in this case named “archivename.zip”, is now encrypted with the password provided. The file that was encrypted, “filetoprotect.txt”, is now inaccessible without entering that password.
Example: Zipping a Folder and Setting a Password
Here is an example of what this will look like from the command line, in this case we are compressing and password protecting the entire ‘Confidential’ folder located within the users /Documents directory, and the password protected zip is being placed on the users desktop for easy access:
$ zip -e ~/Desktop/encrypted.zip ~/Documents/Confidential/
Enter password:
Verify password:
adding: ~/Documents/Confidential/ (deflated 13%)
Notice the password will not display, this is normal behavior for the Terminal.
Opening the Password Protected Zip
Despite being created at the command line, you do not need to unzip the file from the terminal, it can be expanded from the Mac OS X Finder or within Windows using standard unzipping apps. Just double click on the file, then enter the password, and it will decompress. You can also decompress the zip archive from the command line with:
unzip filename.zip
Here are some use cases for password protected zip archives:
- Password protecting an individual file or directory
- Sending a sensitive and encrypted file over an unencrypted network
- Emailing confidential data to a Windows user
- Adding an additional layer of security to a hidden folder
- Password protecting your own backups, outside of Time Machine
While this can provide some protection on a per-file or folder basis, it’s always a good idea to password protect the Mac in general with a login requirement on system boot, wake from sleep, and waking from the screen saver.
Good tip for casual use. Using openssl for encryption would be a better choice for anything truly sensitive to prying eyes.
encrypt:
openssl des3 -salt -in regular.txt -out encrypted.txt
decrypt:
openssl des3 -d -salt -in encrypted.txt -out regular.txt
on Snow Leopard, zip -e works fine, but double clicking to decrypt does not, I get a not permitted error. Meanwhile on my Lion machine I get a file of zero length when Unarchiver is finished ie only the encryption part of this is working
Unarchiver might be screwing it up, the bundled Archive Utility opens these without incident.
Everything works as described here, OS X 10.7.2
I have Lion as well, instead of zip -e use zip -ejr. The “e” option stands for “encryption,” the “j” for “junk the path” (otherwise the zip command will archive the complete folder hierarchy leading to your target folder, which you probably don’t want), and “r” stands for “recursive,” which will force the zip command to include the entire contents of the folder in the archive. (Otherwise it will only archive the folder itself without its contents, which is not exactly useful.)
In Lion (10.7.4): For a single file, I successfully used:
zip -ej archivename.zip originalfile
It does seem that the original file name has to include the path or the file can’t be found. The easiest way to do that is to drag the original file into the Terminal window after the ‘archivename.zip’ — Terminal will put in the path and file name.
It created an encrypted zip file that opened just fine. However, the encrypted file was saved in the top level of my User folder. Two questions:
• Is there any way to create the encrypted-zipped file and have it land in the same location as the original file?
• Can Windows users open the resulting encrypted-zipped file?
unzip filename.zip
works fine
Double-clicking or using the unzip from command line works for myself.
Seems easier to just use Stuffit, Unarchiver, or any number of the other free GUI utilities out there.
Don’t get me wrong, nice to have options.
I keep getting “zip error: nothing to do!” as a response. I don’t see how I could be messing this up, but apparently I am. Any ideas why?
As a response to what specifically?
zip -e archivename.zip file_to_zip.txt
I’m getting the same response “zip error: nothing to do”. Is there a remedy to this?
Silly question, but what about just making a standard zip file? How do you do that?
To make a zip first click on the file then go to file then compress. That should work.
[...] wondered how to make a zip file in Mac OS X? We recently demonstrated how to password protect zip archives, but in the comments a reader asked a more simple yet completely valid question: “what about [...]
Feeling sheepish; have tried zip/pw many times for files and folders and receive this error:
[Chris-MacBookAir:~] christopherrollyson% zip -e ~/Documents/Resources/TechSupt/test4zip.zip ~/Documents/Resources/TechSupt/test4zip.rtfd
Enter password:
Verify password:
updating: Users/christopherrollyson/Documents/Resources/TechSupt/test4zip.rtfd/ (stored 0%)
[Chris-MacBookAir:~] christopherrollyson%
It creates an empty zip every time. Help? TIA
Got Lion und have a similar problem.
Got a valid zip file with option “-e” after entered a password.
But the status message is “stored 0%”!
The zip file is not! encrypted and more the twice as big as the normal zipped file with the finder.
Does anyboby no what I make wrong?
thanks for help!
Joe
I’m in Lion and the compression works fine. It asks for the password and verify and zips the file. When I double click on the zip file it just opens without asking for a password.? I guess I’ll look for some archiving software that has password protection.
You saved the password in your keychain when creating the archive, you have to uncheck save password
What? There is no option to save the password in the keychain in Terminal that I am aware of.
hi i try to follow this .. but after pasting zip -e archivename.zip filetoprotect.txt i can’t proceed typing the password.. well i type a pw but the cursor doesn’t move at all. what am doing wrong?
I tried this as well. I am unable to type a password. We are missing something.
Hello how do you unzip from command? I try double clicking the file with a password protected zip file, but it doesn’t work. Thank you.
hello. also confirming this does not create a password protected archive in lion just as TJ discovered. there is no checkmark for “save password” in the command line. so… what do we do?
quick followup – the original post instructions do not work, as mentioned. however, following rachel’s instructions above, using “-ejr” instead of only “-e” worked just fine in lion. archive was encrypted.
only negative – i use “the unarchiver” as my unzip utility – this password protection froze it. but, the default mac utility works fine.
you’d think something as simple as zip password protection would be easily implemented into the OS, and on top of that would be compatible. i mean, come on apple!
In snow leopard, the archive is created, but double clicking on it throws an Error 1 – Operation Not Permitted.
Lion: In Terminal, I simply get:
-bash: $: command not found
The trick is not to include the dollar-sign ($) when you’re copying the command above. The dollar sign is shown in the Terminal before each command you type and so that’s why it’s shown up there.
So the command you need is just:
zip -er “My output file.zip” “The file/folder I want to ZIP up”
(the “r” after the “-e” just means to also ZIP up any contents of a folder if you specify one; that’s necessary to ZIP up a folder—password or not—at least on Lion).
I have an archive that has been created and encrypted on a PC, which contains three different files, one of them with a different password. Under Lion, if I simply double click on it, I get Error 1 – Operation not permitted.
With terminal, I can unzip with
unzip archive.zip filename.rtf
after providing the password when prompted, the file is extracted fine.
Terminal remains a rather cumbersome tool for users who do not know commands…
In Snow Leopard I had to type cd ~/Desktop (it is on my desktop) in order to make this work, it didn’t find the file just from including the pathname with the filename….
zip -ejr ~/Desktop/FolderToBeZipped.Zip /FileLocation/File.ext
drag and drop the file from the location to the right side of the zip -ejr ~/Desktop/FolderToBeZipped.Zip. Delete any spaces from the drag and drop
This works in Mac OSX 10.7 Lion
zip -e DVD_VR.zip DVD_VR.mp4
gives:
zip warning: name not matched: DVD_VR.mp4
zip error: Nothing to do! (DVD_VR.zip)
cant seem to find anything in the ‘guide’ about what to do when that happens, so ill consider it total junk
This is because you’re trying to ZIP the file while not in the correct directory in Terminal (when you open a Terminal window it opens to your home directory, not the current folder you’re in in Finder). There are two ways you can solve this:
1. Once you have Terminal open, use the “cd” command to change to the folder the file is in. The easiest way to do this is to write “cd ” (that is, type c, then d, then space), then drag the folder your file is in over the Terminal window and press Return. That tells Terminal to “change directory” to the folder you dragged in.
Or, alternatively:
2. Instead of just writing the filename, you can put the full path to the file instead. The easiest way to do _that_ is to drag the file itself onto the Terminal window instead of typing out its name. So then the steps would be to type “zip -e DVD_VR.zip ” (including the space) and then drag your file into the Terminal window, then press return.
The ZIP file will go into the folder you’re currently in in Terminal (so if you don’t change to the directory your file is in first, your ZIP will actually be put in your home directory.
I wanted to zip a folder (that had subfolders) with a password using only OSX (10.8 Mountain Lion). Had similar problems to those detailed above. For me this worked:
zip -er destination_filename.zip sourcefolder
As mentioned in the article, when typing the password, the cursor will not move (typical when working in the terminal). Type as you would normally, hit enter, then confirm the password by typing it a second time (cursor won’t move).
In order to zip the contents of a folder, it’s not enough to just specify the folder name, or you will indeed get an empty zip file. You need to include an asterisk as follows…
zip -e ~/Desktop/encryptedfile.zip ~/Documents/myfiles/*
Thanks for this, just used it with great success.
My steps:
1) Open Terminal;
2) typed “cd” a space and then dragged the folder containing the files to be compressed into the terminal window;
3) unsure if this would do entire folders, I typed
“zip -e File1.xls” (no quotes)
and was asked for pwd 2x
[NOTE: terminal does not show movement when typing pads.. just trust that it's being entered!]
4) typed
“zip -e File2.xls” (no quotes)
and was asked for pwd 2x
5) typed
“zip -e File3.xls” (no quotes)
and was asked for pwd 2x
6) MOVED the Archive.zip folder to a different location;
7) Double-clicked the archive and was asked for pwd.
Voila, folder created on my desktop with the three (3) files inside (I wasn’t sure if it was adding to the Archive or over-writing.. now we know — it was adding!).
Again, my thanks!
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